28 FIELD SHOOTING. 



land or gray plover stays with us and breeds in 

 Illinois. They flock to some extent, but- not in 

 such large numbers as the golden plover do. I 

 have often seen as many as four hundred or five 

 hundred of the latter together, and they sometimes 

 fly so close in the pack that a great many can 

 be cut down with two barrels when you can get 

 within fair distance. After they have scattered and 

 run before they fly, the practice at the single 

 birds is as good as anything for the education 

 of a marksman. The upland plover are more 

 open in their flight, as well as in smaller flocks. 

 They ought not to be shot at all in the spring 

 with us, for they do not arrive from the South 

 until about corn-planting time, and then they are 

 ready to pair and make their nests. September 

 is the proper month to shoot them. They are 

 then very fat and delicious for the table. They 

 frequent the great pasture I mentioned belong- 

 ing to Mr. Gillot. When Miles Johnson of New 

 Jersey was in Illinois shooting with me over that 

 ground, he said he had never seen such plover 

 as those before — that is, for size and fatness — and 

 that each of them would fetch half a dollar in 

 Boston market. 



Eight or ten years ago the American hare, 



